Thursday, June 29, 2006

After Republicans failed to pass a law giving money to religious organizations for charitable purposes, President Bush passed it anyway by means of an executive order, terming them "Faith Based Initiatives".

The justification for such initiatives is that religious organizations are able to do charitable works better than secular ones. Why? I haven't a clue as there's never been any evidence I've seen supporting this. But given that many seem to think that churches have some moral high ground and are inherently better than any secular organization.

But it seems that at least one church recieving such a grant to aid those affected by Hurricane Katrina, is under heavy fire as one of its priests has been accused of raping a woman. So much for moral superiority.

Furthermore, the church, run in a strip mall, faces eviction for failure to pay their rent. This should speak volumes about thier money management skills that should have been considered before the federal government forked over $43,534 to them.

But who knows. Perhaps they really are a good charitable organization and don't have money to pay their rent because they were spending it all on the needey.

Or not.

Instead of helping the homeless with charity, the church charged homeless $3-5 to spend the night. They are being served with a code violation for failure to have a liscence to run a hotel.

So it would seem that $43,534 of taxpayer's money has disappeared to a shady church. But I'm sure this is an isolated incident. After all, the government would never hand over millions to money grubbing mega churches like the ones run by Pat Robertson.